The present invention relates to a new and distinct cultivar of hybrid Baptisia plant, botanically known as Baptisia ‘Pink Truffles’ and will be referred to hereafter by its cultivar name, ‘Pink Truffles’. The new cultivar represents a new false indigo, a hardy herbaceous perennial grown for landscape and cut flower use.
The new invention arose from an ongoing breeding program at a nursery in Waseca, Minn. and continued at a wholesale perennial nursery in Zeeland, Mich. with the specific intention of improving garden worthiness of perennial False Indigo plants with a wider variety of flower colors and improved garden habit.
Baptisia ‘Pink Truffles’ was a selection of a proprietary hybrid given the breeder code name of ‘Red Riding Hood’ (not patented) and the male or pollen parent was an unknown Baptisia from an open pollinated isolation block selection consisting of proprietary complex hybrids. Also in the isolation block were advanced hybrids of Baptisia minor, sphaerocarpa, alba, and cinerea. 
Seeds were collected from ‘Red Riding Hood’ individual selected female plants in fall of 2009 at the isolation block in Waseca, Minn., USA by the inventor. The exact identity of the male parent is not known but it was from proprietary unreleased and non-patented hybrid plants. The seeds were sown by the inventor in Zeeland, Mich., USA in the Fall of 2009 with the initial selection made in the spring of 2012 at a wholesale perennial nursery in Zeeland, Mich. The single seedling selected from the seed parent was assigned the breeder code of H9-51-01. Asexual propagation by cuttings was initially propagated in spring 2012. Sterile plant tissue culture can also be used for asexual propagation. The results of asexual propagation are that the new plant is stable and retains its true characteristics though successive generations of asexual propagation. Propagation method for asexually reproducing plants is primarily stem cuttings.
The nearest comparison plant is a proprietary unreleased hybrid assigned the breeder name of ‘Penny's Tall Pink’. The new plant has a taller, more upright vase habit with thicker stiffer stems and clearer pinkish lavender flower compared to the rounded, shorter habit and more gray-brown tinted flowers. Another proprietary plant named just “pink minor” has a very rounded habit with lighter pink flowers on fewer stems with less coverage. These are the nearest comparison plants known to the inventor and Baptisia ‘Pink Truffles’ is distinct from these and all other Baptisia plants known to the inventor.
The new plant differs from all Baptisia known to the inventor in the following combined traits:                1. Pinkish lavender flowers with exposed yellow keel petals on tall branched spikes just above the foliage in late spring.        2. Upright, vase-shaped, multi-stemmed, winter-hardy habit.        3. Glaucous, medium-green, tri-foliate foliage.        